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Theodore John Cadoux and P. J. Rhodes

Areopagus, the ‘Hill of Ares’ (Ἄρειος πάγος) at *Athens, north-west of the Acropolis, and the ancient council associated with it. There are no substantial remains on the hill; the council's ...
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Areopagus, the ‘Hill of Ares’ (Ἄρειος πάγος) at *Athens, north-west of the Acropolis, and the ancient council associated with it. There are no substantial remains on the hill; the council's meeting-place may have been on a terrace on the north-east side rather than on the summit. Probably the council was called simply boulē (‘council’) at first, and was named after the hill when a second council from which it had to be distinguished was created, probably by *Solon.In early Athens the membership of the council will have been aristocratic. By the time of Solon, if not earlier, it came to comprise all ex-archons (see archontes), who entered it at the end of their year of office and remained members for the rest of their lives. The annual entry of nine new members in middle life maintained a strength of about 150. Changes in recruitment depended on changes in the recruitment of the archons: based on wealth rather than family from the time of *Solon; including the *zeugitai, the third property class, from 457/6 bce; and no longer attracting the men with the highest political ambitions from the first half of the 5th cent.Less

Simon Hornblower

Cleruchy (κληρουχία), a special sort of Greek colony (see colonization, greek) in which the settlers kept their original citizenship and did not form a completely independent community. In Classical ...
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Cleruchy (κληρουχία), a special sort of Greek colony (see colonization, greek) in which the settlers kept their original citizenship and did not form a completely independent community. In Classical Greek history (see end of this article for the Hellenistic position) the term is confined to certain Athenian settlements founded on conquered territory (Greek and non-Greek) from the end of the 6th cent. bce, especially during the period of the *Delian League. It is often difficult to decide whether a settlement of the 5th cent. is a cleruchy, as ancient authors do not always distinguish cleruchies from other colonies (see apoikia), and because it seems that colonists did not forfeit their Athenian citizenship any more than did cleruchs. Perhaps in the 5th cent. ‘cleruchy’ was appropriate where (as at *Lesbos, Thuc. 3. 50) the original Greek inhabitants remained, ‘colony’ where they did not. (This does not work for 4th-cent. *Samos.Less

David Whitehead

Demes dēmo (δῆμοι), local territorial districts—villages, in effect—in Greece, and, by extension, the inhabitants or members thereof. The first of these twin meanings has been detected in the Linear ...
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Demes dēmo (δῆμοι), local territorial districts—villages, in effect—in Greece, and, by extension, the inhabitants or members thereof. The first of these twin meanings has been detected in the Linear B tablets, and both of them occur in *Homer (Whitehead (below), app. 1, with D. M. Lewis in O. Murray and S. Price (eds.) (1990), The Greek City 260 ff.); the first remains common thereafter, but of greater significance is the second, which at local level—*dēmos as the word for an entire citizen-body being a related but separate story—expresses the fact that a Classical or Hellenistic state's dēmoi sometimes served as its official, constitutional subdivisions, besides sustaining internally organized communal functions of their own. Jones (below) assembles evidence, mainly epigraphic, concerning one or the other or both of these roles in 24 places altogether. Some of them manifest deme systems apparently sui generis (e.g. *Calymnos, *Chalcis, *Cos, *Elis, *Eretria, *Histiaea, *Rhodes, *Stratonicea) but more than half betray the impact, direct (*cleruchies) or indirect (e.Less

Simon Hornblower

Pnyx, hill at Athens, 400 m. (c.440 yds.) south-west of the *Agora, where the Classical assembly or *ekklēsia usually met. The auditorium was reconstructed, and its orientation altered, at the end of ...
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Pnyx, hill at Athens, 400 m. (c.440 yds.) south-west of the *Agora, where the Classical assembly or *ekklēsia usually met. The auditorium was reconstructed, and its orientation altered, at the end of the 5th cent. bce, perhaps in connection with the introduction of pay for assembly attendance. See athens, topography.Less